Layers of Illusion
by IWasJokingWithTheUsername
Summary: Fragment of images spontaneously appearing in her mind were the only indication of her past. She couldn't quite understand why that faceless woman tormented her with riddles. As she ventures deeply into figuring out the puzzles, it leads her into darker alleys, while placing her friends in unknown, but pernicious peril.
1. Chapter 1: Fall

She was falling. Falling from the sky at a high speed, the blue entity around her were mere flashes as the plane of the earth appeared in her vision. The force of the air peeled back her skin as thought it was a soft rubber, and whipped back her hair. She heard her own strangled scream from her oxygen deprived lungs through the sound of the air pressuring against her body. She could barely hear the beat of her thunderous heart as the green surface of the earth appeared closer to her vision. She scarcely had the time to register the urgent thought telling her the green surface were trees, and when she did, out of instinct she used her hands to shelter her face, and closed her eyes shut.

She collided into a tree; a sharp stinging pain shot out through her body as cry of pain elected from her already throbbing lips. Before she could still her vision to her sudden new surroundings that seemed to appear in flashes, the splashes of shades of green didn't stopped its persistent motion. With a sickening crunch-she suspected, at the back of her head, was her spine- her body slowed to a stop on a branch.

A loud moan that seemed to overtake the natural noises of her environment escaped her; her back was as though someone was incessantly hammering it with a bulky mallet, causing the pain to gradually engulf her body, and her dangling limbs to numb the effect. Out of fear of furthering the damage, the girl ignored the cry of her body and instead stilled it with tears sprinkling the corner of her orbs, and puffed out the hair that has fallen into her mouth somewhat comically.

The clear sky she has fallen from- with a faint memory of a face- was hazy to her, the echo of the forest was like a thought at the back of her mind, and her head was faint in all activities that formerly informed her on everything. The aching of her abused body was ever so ceaseless even when her sight darkened at the corners, and there was gradual curtain between her and the reality.

* * *

The noises of the battle that brought both a sardonic smile to her lips from the depths of her darkest persona, and a twinge of disgust at her own reaction was probably the only sentiment she has felt since the dawn of the day. Her body danced like a fluid, twisting it with an elegance of a princess, bringing her palms to inflict the atrocities like a dark lord, and wiping the crimson thick liquid of her face that resonated with the smallest of memories of the first time she had repeated her morbid actions that has become routine since then.

Maybe it was because the blood of the Uchiha was directly breaded into her DNA for her to feel only the pleasure of the battle. She was pure-blooded Uchiha, both of her parents coming from untainted ancestors, so maybe that was it... But no matter how much she tried to feed herself lies to make her self feel better about her guilty-pleasure, she knew all too clearly this was false in anyway. Her self-disgust was at times overwhelming to handle, was that the reason she always felt the need to use deceptions on herself just like the genjutsu she seldom uses on her victims? Or maybe it was beca-

"Please stop thinking," her friend whispered vehemently, and leaned her head against her shoulder, her vibrant shaded hair brushing against her face. The first time Mikoto struck her fire induced fist right into the abdomen of her opponent, her sharingan has borne into life as it span wildly with unusual satisfaction. Kushina had witnessed everything as she had clutched her broken arm that day with wide, _scared_ eyes. From that day, Mikoto had been prone to dark reflection, and Kushina would always try to stop it.

Mikoto didn't answer as she glanced at Kushina, her eyes were closed peacefully as though there hasn't been a gruesome battle minutes ago, and she hadn't felt pleasure in that. Sometimes Mikoto admired her best friend's ability to block everything to allow peace of mind to herself; she wasn't able to do that - she wasn't able to do many things Kushina did.

"It's fine. Just forget about it. I love ya anyway." Kushina broke the silence between them again, this time her tone was light hearted with slight gravity tinting it. There was her usual smile plastered on her face with a slight blush at her own 'fluffiness' as she put it. Mikoto turned her head to the vast sky littered with twinkling diamonds with the smallest of simpers, and sparkle in her eyes that has been lost in her own tunnel of reflection.

"Yeah..." She trailed off when Kushina adjusted a little to make herself comfortable. A whiff of coppery smell of blood and sweat hit her nose. She didn't held her breath like she used to, but instead she allowed it to consume her for a split second as it settled in natural fragrance of the forest; petrichor steamed from the ground as usual after long hours of rain.

A serene reticence settled over the two Kunoichi, each absorbed in their polar introspection. The petrichor subsided their sharp perception, perfected through decade of battles that wrecked havoc in the intimate corners of the world, known only to Shinobi.

Mikoto felt the pressure in her shoulder abruptly leave, and red colored strands of hair sweeping against her face.

"I just remembered something." Kushina said, her tone carrying urgency, and her violet eyes ambling in remembrance. Mikoto saw- from the corner of her eyes- her best friend's palms were curled into a fist, the grass crushed in it, and the parasined liquid leaking down from her hand.

"Remembered something?" Mikoto probed gently as she straightened up from her slouching position, her hand instantly stretching towards her thigh in instinct - where her kunai holster were kept as well as a bottle of malignant poison.

"Have you seen a kid on a tree?"

"A kid on a tree?" she repeated, her eyes blinking slowly. The jounin was stupefied; how could a child be in a tree where a battle took place? Was the kid already dead? Or worse kidnapped?

Kushina nodded as she stood up, strand of grass glued to her battle gear on the rear, and wetness around it. Mikoto -thanks to her years of training in mastering her expression- almost snickered as she too followed suit. "Yup. I wanna find that shrimp."

"Are you sure?" Mikoto asked, her brows furrowing in solemnity, contradictory to her short-lived amusement. "That child you are talking about... he can be an enemy to lure you to kill us."

Kushina rolled her eyes. "The kid was knocked out real bad y'know?"

"Still... maybe he was just pretending. Why else would he still be there?"

The Jinchuriki placed her hand under chin in a thinking manner, letting out 'hmm,' her eyes closed tightly and her brows creasing in cogitation. Mikoto waited in equanimity as her thoughts drifted off to the rest of her team. Were were they?

When the battle escalated as enemy ninjas poured in with so much strength than she had anticipated before, the commander of the team told them to retreat at once while he decided to use his last Jutsu that would annihilate them, and in the process he had died with a blinding explosion amongst his opponents.

She and Kushina fled together and were separated from their teammates. They were planning to go back to the village after a night of rest, but her friend remembered a child on a tree.

The Uchiha Matriarch let out a soundless sigh.

If the child is an enemy to kill them, it would be better for them deal with it now instead of letting it move around to cause mischief.

"Kushina. Take me to that place, we should bring him to the village."

The Jinchuriki wasn't stupid enough to think for a moment that her best friend was talking about providing the child with comfortable home and friends; she knew very well Konoha would interrogate him- despite him being a child. Still, if he wasn't an enemy, he would live in a relatively safe village until he grew up and was that child even a he?

"Is he even 'he' to begin with?"

"It's not that time to be worrying about gender."

"Yeah but why is it that we always use 'he' when the person is unknown?" Kushina questioned and placed her hand on her hip with a childish scowl on her face.

"Kushina, we will talk about this topic later on. Use 'she' if you must." The Matriarch rolled her eyes. Sexism was nothing new to her when her clan was one of the most conservative families in the Leaf.

"Yeah whatever."

The two kunoichi jumped on the trees and leapt through them in silence. Mikoto followed her best friend as the wind howled against her face, causing her to squint her eyes ever so slightly. Her surroundings were dark green flashes from their fast movement, the sound of animals were a faint noise in the background due to the screaming wind (Mikoto wondered if there was going to be another storm soon).

Her vibrant haired friend hopped down to giant clearing as she too followed suit. It was where their battle escalated, and their commander had died.

A humongous crater had scarred the ground, the broken weapons etched into to it around the edges of the hole, and the dried blood frozen in their state. A faded smoke was emitting from the crater, carrying the scent of a burnt skin that both of them were familiar with.

Kushina knelt on the ground, and tentatively placed her finger on the ground, and closed her eyes in concentration.

"The kid has been thrown back a few feet from the impact of the explosion." Kushina said as she stood up and turned toward the location of the child. "We should get there fast. The storm is about to start."

Just as she said, the wind picked up again, and swirled the leaves into journey, and moved the branches and twigs of trees. The sky was veiled with grey clouds of various shades, and ever so slowly, it would light up in white entity, and it penetrated through the clouds like a sharp needle.

"It looks like there is going to be lighting as well." Mikoto commented after a moment of observing the oncoming wrath and sadness of Mother Nature.

Kushina nodded in imperceptible manner and clasped her hands in a seal. With a slight shuffle in the air, the Jinchuriki appeared at the edge of the crater, close to the tree.

Letting a sign at her friend's silent determination, Mikoto appeared beside her after completing the required hand seal for the jutsu.

"Do you feel it? Her chakra seems… weird." Kushina said in low voice as the wind carried it off, making it difficult for Mikoto to hear.

"Yes. It is quite unique isn't it?" The Matriarch agreed, the chakra was almost… foreign. Each clan had a specific components in their chakra that would make it easier for them to be distinguished from the rest of the Shinobi. The Uchiha had blazing chakra that could either warm of burn someone, the Hyuga: smooth water that could take anyone's breath, and leave an invisible wound, and so on. Usually, the most experienced and strongest had distinctive feel to chakra that they developed themselves.

But his… or her's either belonged to clan Mikoto and Kushina was unaware of, or she was one of those rare Shinobi with a special chakra component from a young age.

"Come, we need to get to… _her."_ The Uchiha Matriarch used the pronoun 'her' purposely, and began to walk towards the trees.

Kushina followed shortly after with a kunai at hand, 'just in case' she said when Mikoto gave her a questioning look.

Both of them could see the mental chakra thread in their mind as it lead them toward the child. It would go over the rebellious roots of the trees and around the bushes with a faint glow. In fifteen minutes, the thread disappeared, and they were in front of a humongous tree.

The chakra at the other side of it was flaring indistinctly, barely keeping its life. If the two kunoichi hadn't been a sensory ninja, they wouldn't notice it. Kushina glanced at Mikoto momentarily as she clutched the kunai in her hand and Mikoto reached towards her thigh. If he or she was enemy, both of them would need to be prepared. Hypothetically speaking, the battle might not be in their favor because they are already weakened.

The Jinchruiki stepped towards the tree, and tentatively around it with Mikoto, who had thin sheet of sweat covering her face. Two set of ivory legs unveiled itself from the concealment of the tree, and in seconds the entire body of a young girl.

Kushina's brows creased in a glare, her anger emitting in waves of chakra. Mikoto knew Kushina hated when people wronged children, to her they were the epitome of innocence and should be protected at all costs.

The childbefore them was injured and naked. Her arms were turned in the wrong direction with bruises already formed in greenish hue. Her body was littered with cuts, the blood was slightly leaking from her wound as it had enveloped the cuts with varying shades of red. Her skin -that wasn't covered in blood or bruise- was ashen, her lips blue from exposure to the cold weather.

Mikoto strolled towards the girl, and knelt besides her to inspect her wounds. Kushina was still in her position, her chakra continuing to flare, with dark expression splashed across her face. Mikoto had good idea why she was reacting poorly, it had to do with the fact the girl wasn't clothed, and both of them knew what that meant.

The Matriarch noticed the girl before her had fallen, and her spine was damaged. The cuts and bruises was caused by the sharpness of the twigs, and from being thrown a few feet from her initial position, and in the process her arms were broken. Her injuries weren't fatal, but they were severe. They would have to take her to the hospital, question her once she's healed, and find out whether men violated her innocence. Mikoto didn't specialize in Medical field to be able make diagnosis, let alone treat wounds.

Kushina strode towards them, and gently picked the girl up as she cradled her tiny body to her own, and told her best friend they will need to arrive at the Leaf in one day.

"Whatever you say Kushina."


	2. Chapter 2: Confusion

There were voices, a vague, distant voice in the background that sounded like loud whispering. It would flare like the beats of a music; voices going up and down. The pitch black entity surrounding her was like a thick oil, gradually entering her, taking her breath as though it was savoring every moment with glee. Then everything was illuminated by a white light. For a split second a thought fluttered in her mind, telling her it is the sun, except in blinding white color.

As the light subsided, the familiar throbbing in her back and arm, and the stinging all around her body jolted her awake into reality. The two faces above, clad in a blue striped veil, came into her view. For a moment, nothing registered in her mind, only her pain existed. But as they tried to place their gloved hand on her head, panic flooded her, and before she knew someone was wailing and screaming, their voice gruff and stiff with confusion, and her throat hurt.

She instantly felt pressure in her shoulder, trying to push her back. One of them seething with anger, roughly shoved her by the head and into a soft puffy material. From the corner of her eyes, she could see a tube like container with a long needle protruded from one end, and in drops, the transparent liquid venomously escaping the needle, glinting in the light above her head-that loved to burn her eyes, but she refused to close it with a obstinacy of a rebellious teen.

The needle in it's hand disappeared from her view, but the moment it did, she felt tiny, painful intrusion in her head, that spread like flock of ants, painful with each walk on her head. As they traveled throughout her brain, she could feel the familiar dark substance, stinging like an acid, once more engulfing her.

* * *

When she felt her head pounding, she opened her eyes with a grunt. Even if her sight were blurred with small, varying circles of all sizes, she could see the room was lit in orange hue, the specks of dusts slightly visible in where the sun's light filtered through like a needle. A gentle breeze made the curtains flutter, it's violet flowers becoming disoriented in shape. She could see a flower, white and simple, in an undesigned vase, the still water visible through the glass. The blanket that were draped over her numb body were creamy and old with myriad of yellowish stains, the edges ripped in some sides.

Placing her hand on the sides of the bed where there was a metal bar stationed vertically, she pushed herself up. Her body was insensible; she couldn't feel the cold sensation of the bar, or the cool breeze sweeping the room, only the a pounding and the myriads of click-clacks overlapping one another. Some were like heavy thuds, others: light touch, and even screeching that made her want to block her ears.

The door opened, and three figures emerged. It was then she realized the click-clacks stopped, and continued once the people strolled towards her. They had forced friendly expression on their face, their eyes cold with rational observation. The man that appeared to be the leader stood at the front, his frame tall and bulky, the simper on his face seemingly unfit in his sharp features. The one to his right was a petite woman that wore heels, but even then she barely reached the shoulder of both men. On his left, there was a boy with a notepad in his arms, his brows creased, his chest puffed, but his shoulders were slackened; she thought he wanted to appear confident.

Contradictory to her earlier reaction to people above her, calmness had washed over her. Despite the glinting, sharp metals strapped to many parts of their body, she didn't feel threatened. But a thought crossed her mind in a split second, almost indiscernible to her, but she understood it the moment it disappeared into the abyss of her mind: Who were they?

The woman came forward -effectively exhibiting a natural smile- and sat on her bed as it significantly plumped, and the girl was pulled towards her slightly. She took hold of her hand, and widened her smile, the dimple on one side of her cheek becoming prominent. She talked. Her voice would become high pitched at the end of her sentences, sometimes she would stop and look at her expectantly. Becoming uncomfortable under her gaze, and not understanding what the smiling woman was saying, she would simply nod her head, wanting to pull her hand away and hide under the stinky covers. The woman would then laugh, frustration laced in it. The boy would write in his notepad, and shuffle in his feet, while their leader grunted under his breath, rolling his eyes every time she inclined her head.

The petite woman stood up, wiping the smile off of her face, and glared at her. "Dimwit. Do you not understand what I am saying to you?" She said, this time her voice was low, she was almost hissing out the words, the sound of her gritting her teeth clearly noticeable to the confused child who again, nodded her head hesitantly, not comprehending what she was saying.

"Are you playing with me!"

The girl flinched, and backed away slightly. Knowing that she was becoming angry when she inclined her head, she stood frozen, not knowing what to do.

The boy with the notepad placed his hands on the petite woman's shoulder firmly, and jerked her to his direction. The dark aura hanging over her softened the gripping hand of her teammate, and caused him to retreat it quickly with a nervous expression.

"L-look, she's just a kid. Maybe we should just leave her to the specialists...?" He offered meekly, clutching the notepad to his chest as his teammate continued to glare daggers at him. The leader of the group watched the dynamic with indifference, occasionally scratching his nose and yawning.

Their object of frustration observed them, not even having a clue of what they were saying. She was confused, and she couldn't even think for a second without her head pounding even more than it already was. They argued back and forth, the woman's voice becoming more heated by each exchange and the man's more meek. Out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed their leader's eye twitching, his jaw taut with annoyance. Finally he barked at them. Settling in silence, all of them left, but not before the woman gave her a final hard stare.

Gulping the saliva that had formed in her throat, she freed her hands from their clutched state. Her hands were trembling slightly, the loud screaming of her heart still beating down on her ears. Drawing deep breath from her lungs, and exhaling it slowly, she tossed the blanket from her body, and used the metal bars to glide herself to where the woman sat.

Her body - she noticed - was short in height. When she tried to touch the floor with her feet, it was dangling in an unsurfaced force, and when she finally reached it, her height was nearly the same with the bed's. The floor was frosty against her feet.

The numbness in her was leaving.

She padded across the room to the door, her body stumbling slightly. Tentatively placing her hands on the doorknob, she pushed it open. Frigid gust of air hit her face, and seeped into the room in snowy, pellucid puffs of smoke. She exited her room. There was a long hallway, the light above gave it a blue tint. The doors that were once silver were worn out, it had become rusty. Trail of brown liquid were painted over the many doors in frozen state. Under her, the floor was concrete with ploughed ground, pieces of dirtied stones stood erect.

Noting the dead silence that hung in the air, she turned left and walked to the end of hallway, jumping whenever she heard a groan or a scream that broke the stilled silence. Before her was the same hallway that run to her left and right. She turned left without a thought.

Dread of regret settled in her gut when she saw the same man, leader of the group. She wished she had turned the other way when she had the chance. He stopped in his tracks, and eyed her as though she was a bug not worth his time. With a smirk, he ambled towards as she craned her neck to look at him. He stopped before her.

"Ah there you are. Come with me." He said, and roughly pulled her hand, and led her to a place she expected something horrible to happen to her. She nearly collapsed to the floor beneath but he caught her by jerking her by the hand he seized, but he walked slower.

They halted to a stop when they reached a large door; it was rusty like all the others. He pushed it open with a kick. Despite the brutal kick, the door opened slowly with a screech. He yanked her forward, she barely had the time to catch herself from falling. She looked back and glared. But he closed the door after him without sparing her glance.

The room was small, contradicting the large door. There was a stone table that took the shape of a crescent moon, with a hole in the middle, and designs that looked foreign but exquisite at the same time. Hesitantly she touched it, retracting her hand a second later.

The screeching of the door made her jump. A silent, brooding person veiled in all dark clothes came in, and snaked around the room. The figure's gaze fixated on her, the smiling mask sending her head into panic. She became weak in her knees, nauseousness forming in her gut, her vision hazy.

Her surroundings shifted in all directions, and her body hit the floor with 'thud' as it ringed in her ears like a distant yelling. Her lids were heavy as they slowly closed. In that fish shaped hole, that person's masked face appeared, its smiling face with squinted eye made it look as though it knew everything that was going on in her mind. The fish shaped hole closed, bring the comforting presence of darkness to her.


End file.
